Practicing yoga during pregnancy is an excellent way to get exercise as well as ease anxiety and prepare your mind for labor, but have you ever thought about teaching prenatal yoga? Prenatal yoga instructors go through training in addition to their standard yoga teacher certification to be able to safely guide pregnant individuals through yoga sequences. Vania Gomez, a prenatal yoga teacher & YogaRenew graduate in Phoenix, chatted with us to explain the benefits of teaching prenatal yoga.
Boost Your Mood
“I enjoy watching pregnant women feel better with their bodies after class. I notice how relaxed they are after stretching and calmer because they have worked with their breathing,” says Vania. Contributing back to your community in such a hands-on way can leave you feeling very valued and happy. Many teachers find that supporting their students brings them the same relief from anxiety and stress that the classes bring to their students. Pregnancy is a very difficult time that requires all the support available to have the best experience possible.
Experience Body Positivity
A lot of women struggle with body positivity. This is even truer during pregnancy. Being able to take a yoga class that is specifically designed for what your body is currently going through can make you feel better in your own body. It can have the same benefit for you as the instructor. Vania discusses how pregnant yoga students may be intimated entering a yoga studio not knowing if a class is available for them. They may feel nervous or worried about the difficulty level of a regular yoga class with their changing body. Vania says, “if they enter a yoga studio knowing there are prenatal classes available I know they will at least give it a try”.
Be Part of a Knowledgable Elite
Being a prenatal yoga teacher puts you in a special class of yoga teachers. You have not only undergone specific education to become a yoga teacher but you then went on to be further educated to safely guide pregnant individuals in yoga classes. You may be one of the few prenatal yoga teachers, or even the only one, in your area depending on where you work and practice. This gives you access to a very specific client base to work within a very rewarding industry.
To be supported by YogaAlliance, a yoga teacher training school must have 85 hours in their prenatal yoga teacher training program. When researching a school to take your prenatal yoga teacher training always look into their curriculum. Ensure that you are going to not just be teaching but teaching safely. Pregnant individuals are undergoing a lot of changes, physically and mentally, which make them more susceptible to injury. Proper training and safety practices are essential to operating the best prenatal yoga program.
